1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hydrophilic porous spherical separating carrier and its preparation. More particularly, it relates to a hydrophilic separating carrier suitable for separating important water soluble materials such as proteins and enzymes in an aqueous medium by a gel permeable effect in a high speed liquid chromatography.
2. Description of the Prior Arts
Heretofore, a gel filtering method has been known as one important method for separating and purifying water soluble materials.
Dextran gel and polyacrylamide gel have been widely used in a biochemical field etc., as a separating carrier. However, these gels have low mechanical strength whereby these gels could not be used as carriers for high speed liquid chromatography, disadvantageously.
Recently, various tests for producing hydrophilic gels having high mechanical strength by a crosslink polymerization of an acrylate monomer or a methacrylate monomer, have been studied. However, it has not been attained to obtain a gel having high function for satisfying the following important functions.
(1) High mechanical strength
(2) No adsorption of measured materials
(3) High separation factor (resolution)
These functions can be obtained only when various desired physical and chemical properties required for an ideal gel are given.
Among the known gels, polyethyleneglycol dimethacrylate gels disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 24512/1973 have an advantage of small adsorbing property but have disadvantages of low mechanical strength and small separation factor.
The gels obtained by copolymerizing hydroxyethyl methacrylate and ethyleneglycoldimethacrylate disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 64187/1973 having high adsorbing property and low mechanical strength.
The inventors have studied on various crosslinking agents in view of the consideration that the most important matter for producing ideal hydrophilic separating carriers is in a selection of a crosslinking agent.
As a result, it has been found that the conventional crosslinking agent such as ethyleneglycoldimethacrylate is effective for increasing mechanical strength of a gel but inferior hydrophilic property to give strong hydrophobic adsorption sites in the gel on the properties required for the crosslinked product.